Nasdaq to beat the broader market this year: Tech investor Paul Meeks

Technology investor Paul Meeks is no longer avoiding the group that made him famous on Wall Street.

Meeks, who ran the world’s biggest tech fund for Merrill Lynch in the late 1990s and early 2000s, expects the tech-heavy Nasdaq to end the year at least 10 percent higher.

“I’m starting to creep out of the bunker,” he said Friday on CNBC’s “Trading Nation.” “I would say that when you get to December 31 of this year, the Nasdaq will be up double digit in calendar 2019. And, it will outperform both the Dow and the S&P [500 Index].”

It’s a material shift for Meeks. Late last year, he was telling investors that most tech names were “uninvestable.” Now, he believes tech valuations have come down enough to start putting money to work again — as long as it’s done with vigilance.

“Some companies are doing quite well, and some are giving very mixed even bearish guidance. So you have to be super careful,” he said.

For example, when it comes to FANG names Facebook, Amazon, Netflix and Alphabet, Meeks owns them all. However, he wouldn’t add positions to all of them right now.

“The only one I think I would buy here because I think it is the best among the group combination of valuation support and upside potential is Alphabet,” he said.

According to Meeks, tech stocks could still see some near-term turbulence especially around the U.S.-China trade war deadline on March 1. However, the investment picture should begin to improve after that.

“A lot of the gains are going to come between the summer and the end of the year — a second half phenomenon,” Meeks said.

For the week ending Friday, the Nasdaq is up a half percent, and it remains in correction territory.